


Tempered Steel (The Only One Bar in this Town Remix)

by navaan



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 3490
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alcoholic Tony Stark, Captain America/Iron Man Relay Remix 2017, Captain America/Iron Man Remix 2017, Complicated Relationships, Compromise, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Female Tony Stark, Flashbacks, Marriage Proposal, Remix, Romance, Superhero Registration Act
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-09-30 22:23:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10173716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: Steve still has nightmares sometimes of losing Natasha in a fire or to her addiction. Worst of all he thinks he might still be afraid to make her walk away when he wants nothing more than to stand at her side.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Timely Rescue (the whiskey and fire remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10074641) by [Lets_call_me_Lily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lets_call_me_Lily/pseuds/Lets_call_me_Lily). 



_He carries her out of the burning building. Breathing is hard even for him and she is drunk. Hours ago he’d been only angry, so angry. At her, at himself for not having noticed, at the alcohol that she can’t get away from and that keeps leading her further down, down, down. Now the only thing that matters is getting her out of here._

_As gently as possible he puts her down, makes sure she’s breathing._

_She is._

_He can smell the booze on her breath and sits back on his haunches to watch her. Suddenly he’s only sad. All Natasha has been working for all her life has slowly been crumbling around her, and the only thing he’s been thinking about is why she hasn’t come to him first. Why hasn’t she come to him? Why doesn’t she want his help? Why doesn’t she trust him?_

_“I always want to be there for you, Tony,” he says like it’s a vow, using the college nickname only Rhodes, Happy, Pepper and he get to use, and touches her cheek. Iron Man was his best friend for so long, for much longer than he has known who’s inside the armor. Losing her is unthinkable, but things cannot go on like this._

_The building is still burning. He needs to help, putting out the fire._

_He talks with Rhodes, who arrives in the armor not a minute later. They want to make sure Natasha gets help._

_When he turns she is gone._

* * *

A cool hand stroked across his brow in careful, even motions. It soothed him, just as he startled awake.

“Nightmare?” Natasha asked. 

It took his breath away every time to look up at her and think: “We nearly missed out on this. I nearly lost her. I could have so easily lost her.”

“The ice?” she prodded. And he knew her next words would be: “Bucky?”

But his head had cleared and he could finally see her and tried to smile, sitting propped up against the headboard of the bed in a black tank top, her face visible in the blueish light the tablet she’s reading on is giving off. His smile must have come out sadder than he thought.

“You’re still mad about Extremis?” Her voice did not waver, her tone only going that one notch softer and giving away her insecurity. 

Steve couldn’t say he knew _how_ he was feeling about Extremis. It made him uncomfortable to think that his Tony had changed herself, had taken the risk of experimenting on her own body and life. But she was _alive_.

“You _are_ still mad.” She looked away.

He shook his head and pulled himself up to kiss her. She let the tablet sink to her lap and let it happen. He tried to convey all he was feeling with one gentle kiss. “I could have lost you,” he whispered. “I could have lost you so easily.”

She pulled him closer against herself and whispered into his hair: “I’m still here, Steve. I’m still here.”

He remembered, going after her, searching for her after she’d just stumbled away from the fire that night, leaving her life and the Avengers and even Iron Man behind. Leaving Steve behind, like he could never be the one to help her.

Then he hadn’t understood that she needed to find her own ground again, needed to figure out how to save herself instead of everyone else for once, find joy and purpose again. And she had needed to do it without feeling judged, without people trying to help and putting more pressure on her instead. Natasha Stark had needed to build herself up from the ground and shown the world that she could do it all on her own.

He’d felt nothing but sadness when after months of following her tracks he finally caught his first glimpse of her sitting at a bar, a drink in front of her. 

“Come to scold me?” she had asked and pushed away the glass. 

She hadn’t been drunk then. Someone had ordered the drink for her and she’d not taken a sip, fighting herself right there in a bar where she knew she had no place being right then. Conflict, struggling with yourself, had been something he could understand. So he hadn’t said anything and just slipped his hand over hers.

Trying to shake the memories, but not letting go of her, he leaned his head on her shoulder and whispered: “I haven’t followed you home to judge you.” The fire of his dream was as hot in his memory as it had been then. He needed to feel her close, needed to feel her heartbeat.

“Good,” Natasha said and sniffed. “Because I had hoped for something else, Captain America.” She wriggled her eyebrows suggestively and he had to laugh.

They still argued and disagreed and sometimes they even pushed each other away. They were both too used to getting their own way, too used to follow their own counsel and take the lead when needed, but being together made it easier.

Tempered steel, he thought when he kissed Natasha and pressed her down on the bed. They were stronger for having gone through the fire. They were stronger for every compromise they negotiated and for every disagreement they managed to put behind them.

He needed to remember that.

* * *

_The fire sears him. Natasha lies unmoving in the corner and looks up at him. It must be a dream, because he doesn’t remember her looking up at him, before he grabs her, picks her up, cradles her against his chest and carries her - out to safety, to the alley and the opportunity to walk away from him._

_He holds her and she looks at him._

_He’s rooted to the spot where he stands in the flames. Her head is cradled against his shoulder. “We’re in a bad box,” she slurs and laughs, like this is a movie, like she doesn’t care about dying. “You need to get out. It’s what you want to do. Get out. Leave me here.”_

_Even in the dream he understands, that there is no reason why he shouldn’t be able to carry her out, but his feet aren’t moving._

_What is the last thing he remembers? Arguing? Registration? Words hurting and flying across a table, as Natasha glares at him and he glares at her… And he grits his teeth, pushing all of it aside and walks._

_She stops laughing, stares up at him._

_He won’t let go._

_Not even here._

_Not again._

* * *

He found her in that same bar where he’d found her all those years ago like there was only one place in this in this city, tumbler filled with clear liquid in front of her. He looked at it and did very decidedly not frown. He knew it could only be water. Natasha had a way of putting herself in this place when she needed to remind herself that she could do it, that she could be with people who drank and not fall down the wagon. At a time Steve had called it foolish, risky, but he understood her need to prove herself now.

Some things his Tony had to work out with herself.

He sat down.

“Here to call me out?” she asked and sighed. She looked so strange to him in the checkered flannel shirt and with a baseball cap drawn down over her eyes to hide her face, her hair open and falling freely over her shoulders.

“I don’t agree with you about Registration,” he said without any sort of preamble. “But I love you. I want you to know that I’m not going to walk away from that and I don’t want you to walk away from it either. I always know where to find you anyway.”

“I’m that predictable, I know,” she said and sniffed.

And that was perhaps the one thing that had never really been true. It was hard to read her sometimes, hard to know when she was pretending, when she was hiding behind the walls she’d built against the world over the years that held the rest of them at arm’s length better than any armor ever could. Because you could forget she had these walls, when she was all emotion and impulse and headstrong need to fight.

Perhaps he could work on that, too - the being less predictable part.

“Marry me,” he said and thought of flames and tempered steel and learning to live with the struggle, learning to negotiate compromise. “You’ve been my best friend for years, Tony,” he whispered. “I can’t lose you over something like this.” He’d come too close before. “Marry me.”

Her blue eyes had gone wide. She stared, stared, looked down at her hands, narrowed her eyes in the way she did when she was thinking and then took a sip of her water. “Alright,” she said. “You’ll probably regret this, but I won’t. Just remember you brought this on yourself.”

“Then,” Steve said and smiled, “this whole argument will have been entirely worth it.”

He took her hand like he’d done all of these years ago and she laced their fingers together. They were nowhere near solving this yet, but at least they had a good incentive to come to an agreement soon.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Loss (The Better Reflections Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10442985) by [laireshi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/pseuds/laireshi)




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